Resource depletion and
persuasion: The
moderating Role of the
heuristic principle of
reciprocity
Name: Dana Jany
Studentnumber: 0116998
Date: July 2008
University of Twente
Department of Behavioral Science
P.O. Box 217
7500AE Enschede
The Netherlands
Thesis Committee:
Drs. Loes Janssen
Drs. Marieke Fransen
Department:
Consumer & Behavior
Consumer & Behavior
Resource depletion and persuasion
Contents
Abstract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4
Social Influence Strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4-6
Elaboration Likelihood Model. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7-8
Limited Resource Model of self-control and resource-depletion . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8-10
The present article . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10-11
Method
Participants. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Procedure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12-15
Results
Manipulation Check. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16
Analyses of hypotheses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16-18
General Discussion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19-22
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23-25
Appendix I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26
Appendix II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
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Resource depletion and persuasion
Abstract
The present article examines the effect of regulatory resource depletion on the amount of
compliance, through the use of a heuristic, which either promotes compliance or enhances
resistance to persuasion, in particular the heuristic principle of (reversed) reciprocity. Results
partly indicate that a state of regulatory resource depletion diminishes self-regulatory
resources. It appears that counterargument is a self-regulatory process that can be weakened
when self-regulatory resources have previously been reduced. Moreover, we did not find
significant results for a higher compliance rate when the heuristic principle of reciprocity was
used, or a lower compliance rate when reversed reciprocity was used. Notwithstanding, a
tendency can be seen in the desired direction. Specifically, participants were overall more
willing to comply when the request was preceded by the heuristic which promotes persuasion
than when the heuristic was used which promotes resistance to persuasion or when no
heuristic was used. Further, the present study did not find an interaction between depletion
induction and heuristic activation on compliance rates. As a consequence, the results of the
present study indicate that the heuristic principle of reciprocity apparently does not have a
moderating role in the effect of depletion on compliance. Taken together these results show
that it is important to take self-regulatory resources into account in a social influence
situation.
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Resource depletion and persuasion
Introduction
Imagine you are walking around downtown and that a friendly young man starts to involve
you in a conversation. After talking to you for a while, he is trying to persuade you to sign a
membership form in order to become a member of a book club. In return he gives you a small
present, for example a bookmark. Would you comply with his request?
In many situations, similar to this, people are targeted with a social influence technique
which attempts to persuade a consumer in a witty way. As can be seen from this example
those who seek to persuade us seek to create or change our attitudes, opinions, or behaviours
in a particular direction. Thus, the key targets of persuasion are our attitudes, opinions, and of
course our behaviour. The present article focuses in particular on behavioural changes which
follow from clever social influence strategies.
Social influence strategies
The field of social influence strategies is famous for its demonstration of psychological
phenomena that mostly occur in direct response to explicit social forces. One of the most
memorable demonstrations of social influence strategies came from Stanley Milgram. In the
early 1970's, researcher Stanley Milgram stunned the world with his study on obedience.
Milgram demonstrated that the majority of participants would deliver harmful electric shocks
to another person despite protests from the victim (Milgram, 1974). In this prominent
representation, the targets of influence were confronted with explicit social forces that were
within conscious awareness (Milgram, 1974).
In everyday life the situations one encounters with social influence strategies are not as
extreme as in Milgrams study. However, the world of today is an environment dense with
influence attempts. Advertisers overwhelm us as consumers with numerous ad campaigns
designed to sell cars, food, drinks, sneakers, computers, services and many more. Likewise,
politicians make speeches and kiss babies to win votes. This shows, that social influence
strategies are used in many domains.
Certainly, it can be said that every one of us has had the experience of complying to an
influence agent´s request. These requests vary according to the goal the influence agent has in
mind. Examples include donating money for a charity, signing a petition, volunteer to invest
time and effort, buying a product, and many more. Think about this for a moment, have you
ever encountered a situation where you became the target of an influence agent? Did you
comply with the request, or was it possible for you to resist? Influence agents know that if he
or she can manage the situation and choose the correct technique, the response to his or her
4
Resource depletion and persuasion
technique will be successful. This means that we, as influence targets, become influenced or
even persuaded by the influence agent.
As can be seen in many everyday situations it is often difficult to resist a request made by
an influence agent. More important, it seems that many of us are not even aware of the
thousands of times each day we are influenced by someone else. Most people are either
unaware of these influences (mindless), or when they are, they greatly overestimate the
amount of freedom they have to make up their own minds.
In a classic study of automatic responses (Langer, Blank, & Chanowitz, 1978) this is
demonstrated. In their study it becomes apparent that people seem to respond mindlessly
when confronted to a social influence situation (Langer, 1992). In this study, a researcher
asked a small favour of people who were waiting in line to use a library copy machine:
“Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I´m in a rush?” As a
result, 94% of those who were asked let the researcher go ahead of them in line. This elegant
demonstration shows that we are vulnerable to techniques that elicit automatic responses
(Langer et al., 1978). It becomes obvious from this study that people often act without
thinking about the context or situation they encounter. The heuristic used here was a senseless
reason (“because I´m in a rush”), and although this reason did not make sense the majority of
participants complied. It seems as if the appearance of a reason, triggered by the word
“because”, was all that was necessary.
This and many other studies in the field of compliance frequently show that consumers
often automatically use simple heuristics when confronted with persuasive messages, without
analyzing all decision-relevant information (Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004; Langer et al., 1978).
A heuristic is a mental shortcut that allows people to solve problems and make judgments
quickly and efficiently. The rule-of-thumb strategies shorten decision-making time and allow
people to function without constantly stopping to think about the next course of action
(Kahneman, Slovic, & Tversky, 1982).
While heuristics are helpful in many situations, they can also lead to biases (for example,
Chaiken & Trope, 1999; Tversky & Kahneman, 1974). Such a bias can be observed in the
study by Langer et al. (1978). The use of the “because” heuristic, even if it was senseless, lead
to a disadvantage for the subjects. Participants let the researcher go ahead in line because of a
reason which sounded reasonable but offered no real reason to comply. This study points out
that it is often the case that we, as consumers or influence targets, make use of heuristics; the
word “because” alone was enough to trick subjects into submission. Generally, it can be said
that we use these heuristics to make our daily lives easier.
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Resource depletion and persuasion
Several decades of studies on social influence techniques verify that consumers are
induced to comply with a request at a much higher rate when they come in contact with a
social influence technique than when the request is made without this technique (Cialdini &
Goldstein, 2004; Cialdini, 2001). A number of studies have shown that this probably occurs
because people make use of decisional heuristics (see for example, Fennis, Janssen, & Vohs,
under review; Langer et al. 1978).
These heuristics are often embedded in a social influence strategy, for example, the Doorin the-Face technique (Cialdini et al., 1975; Cialdini, 2001) and the Foot-in the-Door
technique (Freedman & Fraser, 1966).
The Door-in-the-Face technique is used by requesters by beginning with an extreme
request that is sure to be rejected and then retreating to a more moderate request, the one the
requester had in mind from the outset (Cialdini et al., 1975; Cialdini, 2001). The goal is to get
the person to agree to the moderate request, which seems reasonable compared to the extreme
request at the beginning. The requester hopes that the retreat from the extreme request to the
moderate request will encourage the person to make a reciprocal concession, by moving from
initial rejection of the larger favour to acceptance of the smaller one (Cialdini et al., 1975;
Cialdini, 2001).
The Foot-in-the-Door technique is based on the commitment/consistency principle. First, a
salesperson using this technique will ask for a small initial request that the consumer cannot
easily refuse. Then, the initial compliance is followed by a request for a larger related favour.
As a consequence, people who agree to the initial small favour are more willing to agree to
the larger one in order to be consistent with the implication of the initial action (Burger, 1999;
Freedman & Fraser, 1966; Cialdini, 2001).
Beyond the heuristics which are used in the examples mentioned above there are more of
which fundraisers make use in a clever way. The following principles can also be used to
motivate us to comply with another´s request: social validation, friendship/ liking, scarcity,
and authority (Cialdini, 1993; Cialdini, 2001).
The process of generating compliance refers to the process of getting others to say yes to a
request. In other words, compliance is the science of getting what you ask for (Cialdini, 2001;
Cialdini & Goldstein 2004). The present article focuses on exactly this topic: compliance
evoked by social influence techniques, and the role of the heuristic principle of reciprocity.
6
Resource depletion and persuasion
Elaboration Likelihood Model
So far, we have introduced some social influence strategies which are used nowadays in
many contexts, for example the Door-in-the-Face technique. The question remains how
exactly such strategies work to change or influence the behaviour or attitude of the influence
target or consumer. Why do people rely on such simple heuristics and get persuaded so easy?
The Elaboration Likelihood Model which was introduced during the 1980s introduced by
R.E. Petty and J.T. Cacioppo gives an explanation of how a persuasive message works to
change the attitude of the receiver. In particular, the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM)
assumes that we do not always process communications the same way (Petty & Cacioppo,
1986a).
According to Petty and Cacioppo we make decisions and hence get persuaded through two
rather different routes of persuasion, in particular, the central route and the peripheral route.
When people think critically about the contents of a message, they are said to take the central
route to persuasion and are influenced by the strength and quality of the arguments (Petty &
Cacioppo, 1986a). When people do not think critically about the contents of a message but
focus instead on other cues, they take the peripheral route to persuasion (Caccioppo, Petty,
Kao, & Rodriguez, 1986; Petty & Cacioppo, 1986a; Petty & Caccioppo, 1986b).
On the peripheral route to persuasion, people will often evaluate a communication by using
simple heuristics, or rules of thumb (Chaiken, 1987; Chen & Chaiken, 1999). If a
communicator has a good reputation, speaks fluently, or looks good, we tend to assume that
the message must be correct. Likewise, we assume that a message must be correct if it shows
a list of supporting experts or if it is familiar (Shavitt, Swan, Lowrey, & Wanke, 1994).
Certainly, it can be said that not every single message we encounter in our daily life is
sufficiently interesting to think about, and not every situation provides us with sufficient time
for careful reflection. Every person receives an incredible number of messages daily, and
certainly, we do not carefully pay attention to every single one of them. The great majority of
these messages are not worth our time and will completely be dismissed. After all, there are
only a certain amount of things we can pay attention to, and so we use some rules of thumb,
or heuristics, to help us decide whether to accept or reject a message (Chaiken, 1987). These
heuristics can be thought of as mental shortcuts we resort to, simply because our time and
cognitive capacities are limited (Petty & Wegener, 1999).
It seems that the peripheral route to persuasion is used by consumers when fundraisers
make use of social influence strategies, in particular when they make use of heuristics.
Remember the example in the beginning? If you would comply with the request and sign the
7
Resource depletion and persuasion
membership form for the book club, this seems to be akin to the peripheral route to
persuasion. This can be explained by the fact that in this context influence targets do not have
enough time, lack the ability and motivation to think about the message carefully.
In addition, does the study of automatic responses by Langer et al. (1978) remind you of
the peripheral route? To me, it certainly does. This study shows how easily people can be
influenced when they are confronted with simple heuristics, in this case a senseless reason,
triggered by the word “because”. As a result, the majority of the subjects complied and let the
researcher go ahead in line.
A last important point to mention is that the two routes to persuasion do not lead to the
same form of attitude change. Attitude change via the central route will be much deeper than
via the peripheral route; it is much more resistant to counterpersuasion, it is more long lasting,
and predictive of behaviour. Attitude changes via the peripheral route are more superficial,
and more easily altered by counterpersuasion.
Limited resource model of self-control and resource-depletion
Thus far, we have described the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) to explain how
people get persuaded by a persuasive message. Recently, there is another theory, the limited
resource model of self-control, which could possibly explain how and why people get
influenced by social influence techniques. Compared to the Elaboration Likelihood Model
(ELM) which stresses that people do not always have the motivation and ability to process
every single message they encounter, the limited resource model of self-control offers a
different explanation of why people so often fall prey to social influence techniques
(Baumeister, Schmeichel, & Vohs, 2003).
The self plays a major role in the limited resource model. A reason therefore is that the self
is also of crucial importance in social influence techniques. Without the self it would rather be
impossible to function in everyday life. The self exerts control over responses about the
external world and itself. Beside that, it is responsible for acts of volition, making choices and
decisions, and initiating and inhibiting behaviour (Baumeister et al., 2003).
As found out by recent research, active self-control can be detrimental in that it depletes
some inner resource, akin to strength or energy (Baumeister et al., 2003; Baumeister &
Heatherton, 1996). According to the limited resource model of self-control opportunities for
active self-regulation are limited (Baumeister, Bratslavsky, Muraven, & Tice, 1998). The
main idea behind resource-depletion is that self-regulatory processes, such as controlled
8
Resource depletion and persuasion
information processing, cost energy, and this energy provision is limited (Baumeister et al.,
1998). This main idea can be compared with the central route of processing.
As stated in the section above, the central route to processing involves thinking carefully
about and examining information that is relevant to a particular topic (Petty & Caccioppo,
1986a; Petty & Caccioppo, 1986b). Taking the central route to persuasion seems impossible
when we think of the thousand of times each day someone is trying to influence us. It
becomes evident that we certainly do not have the time, energy, motivation, and ability to
think about every message carefully.
When reviewing the literature, theory in the area of resource depletion draws upon a
strength metaphor, whereby exertion in one situation is followed by a period of reduced
ability in a subsequent situation (Baumeister, Heatherton, & Tice, 1994; Baumeister &
Heatherton, 1996). Accordingly, any exertion of willpower or self-regulation in one task, as
long as it is sufficiently demanding, should reduce any subsequent self-regulation on a
second, seemingly unrelated task (Baumeister, Muraven, & Tice, 2000; Baumeister et al.,
1998). As a consequence, ones resources for self-regulation are reduced and one falls back to
routine and automatic behaviour as a basis for decision-making (Baumeister et al., 2000;
Baumeister & Vohs, 2007). It appears to be clear that the falling back to routine behaviour
plays a role in social influence strategies. Reviewing the study by Langer et al. (1978),
subjects actually had no reason to comply but clearly they did because the situation they
encountered involved a heuristic (a reason). This and numerous other studies (see for
example, Fennis, Janssen, & Vohs, under review; Fennis, Janssen, Pruyn, & Vohs, in press)
show that when making use of heuristics, people seem to comply at higher rates.
Notably, studies have lately begun to explore the link between self-regulation failure and
persuasion. This area of research suggests that a state of self-regulatory resource depletion
weakens resistance to temptations (Baumeister, 2002). For instance, Janssen et al. (in press)
linked resource depletion theory to persuasion research, and found that resource depletion has
an effect on compliance with a request: in particular compliance increased. This was the case
when beforehand a compliance promoting heuristic was present. Specifically, in one of their
experiments (experiment 4), a state of regulatory resource depletion was induced with a selfcontrol task and the heuristic principle reciprocity was made salient. The results showed that
participants who were depleted complied more as compared to participants in the no-depletion
condition. Moreover, participants also complied more when the heuristic principle of
reciprocity was made salient. In a different study it was shown that the use of heuristics can
also work in the opposite direction, for instance, it can reduce the rate of compliance (Fennis,
9
Resource depletion and persuasion
Janssen, & Pruyn, 2008). Experiment 3 studied whether a state of resource depletion can
result in resistance to persuasion. In order to promote resistance to persuasion, Janssen et al.
(2008) used a heuristic which encourages this; a warning about advertisement deceive was
used. It was expected that subjects who were warned would have a less positive attitude
toward a mobile phone which was recommended beforehand, especially when they were
depleted of their regulatory resources. The results supported this pattern.
The present article
When regarding the study of Janssen et al. (2008) the question arises whether resistance to
persuasion can be enhanced when different heuristic principles are used. In the recent study
we try to investigate whether people who are in a state of regulatory resource depletion
comply less with a request when a heuristic is present that promotes resistance to persuasion
(reversed reciprocity), in contrast with a condition in which compliance promoting heuristic is
present (reciprocity), or no heuristic. This contributes to the literature in that the connection of
heuristic reciprocity and resource depletion is used in the reversed direction, which is
supposed to promote resistance to persuasion. This in turn extends the literature in that a
rather atypical behaviour of consumers will be studied, particularly their resistance. As a
consequence the following research question results: Is the effect of resource depletion on the
amount of compliance with a request moderated by a heuristic, which either promotes
compliance or resistance to persuasion?
We suggest that a state of regulatory resource depletion results in less compliance with a
request when a heuristic (in particular reversed reciprocity) is present that promotes resistance
to persuasion. Furthermore, we expect that a state of regulatory resource depletion results in
more compliance with a request when the heuristic principle of reciprocity is present that
promotes persuasion.
When reviewing the literature it becomes apparent that tasks which induce a state of
depletion will have a negative effect on the amount of self-regulatory resources.
As a result, the first hypothesis is:
H1: Main effect of depletion induction on amount of self-regulatory resources.
(Subjects have less self-regulatory resources after a depleting task)
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Resource depletion and persuasion
Based on the preceding literature, we expect that subjects´ compliance rates will differ
dependent on how the principle of heuristic will be manipulated.
More specifically, the following hypotheses are:
H2: Main effect of heuristic on the amount of compliance.
H2a: People´s compliance is enhanced when the heuristic principle of reciprocity is used.
H2b: People´s resistance to compliance is enhanced when the reversed reciprocity principle is
used.
The combined effects of hypotheses 1 and 2 may have further implications on the behaviour
of subjects. Thus the following hypotheses will also be tested in the present study:
H3: Interaction effect of depletion induction and heuristic activation on compliance.
H3a: A state of self-regulatory resource depletion results in less compliance when a heuristic
is present that promotes resistance to persuasion.
H3b: A state of self-regulatory resource depletion results in more compliance when a heuristic
is present that enhances persuasion.
11
Resource depletion and persuasion
Method
Participants
Subjects were 115 students of both sexes at the University of Twente, in Enschede (The
Netherlands). Because of extreme scores five subjects were excluded from the study, leaving
a total sample of 110 subjects (67 female, 43 male; M = 21.45 years old, SD = 2.91). In
exchange for participating in this study, subjects either received 1 course credit and € 2,50 or
€ 6,50. Informed written consent was obtained from each participant prior to the study.
Subjects were randomly assigned to one of the six conditions with the experimenters blind to
condition.
Procedure
Each participant was tested individually in a small room. Prior to arrival at the laboratory,
subjects were randomly assigned to one of the six conditions. A 2 (depletion-induction:
depletion vs. no depletion) x 3 (heuristic activation: reciprocity vs. reversed reciprocity vs.
control) between-subjects design was used in this study.
Upon arrival, participants were told that the experiment consisted of several unrelated tasks
which were administered on a computer. Participants’ first task included answering the
questions of a scale which measures the trait self-control (Tangney, Baumeister, & Boone,
2004). This scale consists of 36 items that are rated on a 5-point scale (1 = not at all; 5 = very
much). Sample items include, “I do many things on the spur of the moment”, “People would
say that I have iron self-discipline” (reversed), and “Sometimes I can´t stop myself from
doing something, even if I know it´s wrong”. The reliability of the scale was high (α = .84).
Manipulation of Self-Regulatory Resource Depletion. The depletion induction for this
study was the Stroop task, a task which is known for challenging people’s executive
functioning capacities (Baumeister, Ciarocco, & Vohs, 2005). In the Stroop task, which was
also done at the computer, research participants were asked to click the colors in which
groups of letters are printed. If the letters are random sequences (in this study: XXXXX), this
task is rather easy. As a result, this version of the Stroop task was used for the no-depletion
condition. If, however, the letters form color names (for example, yellow and red), the task
becomes much harder. Thus, a participant might see “red” printed in green ink, “blue” in
yellow ink, and so on. The task requires simply to click the name of the ink color, so the
participant should click “green, yellow” in the example trials just mentioned. In this setting,
the participant cannot help but read the words, and this produces a strong competing response:
the subject is likely to respond very slowly, because while trying to click the ink colors, he or
12
Resource depletion and persuasion
she is fighting the tendency to read the words themselves (Stroop, 1935). As a consequence,
this version of the Stroop task is supposed to induce self-regulatory resource depletion by
inhibiting the automatic response to read the word. Participants in both conditions responded
to 48 items.
State Ego Depletion Scale. Following the Stroop task, the State Ego Depletion Scale
(Ciarocco, Twenge, Muraven, & Tice, under review) was presented in order to measure self
regulatory resource depletion. Items included in the scale are, for instance, “I feel exhausted,”
“A new challenge would appeal to me right now” (reversed), and “I wish I could relax for a
moment”. The reliability of the depletion scale was high (α=.94).
Mood. Further, a mood scale of 3 items was presented. The following items were included:
“At this moment I feel good/bad,” “At this moment I feel happy/unhappy,” and “At this
moment I feel sad/lively”. Once again participants rated these items on a 7-point scale (for
example: good 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 bad). The reliability of the mood scale was high (α = .81).
Manipulation of heuristic. The next step involved manipulating the salience of the heuristic
principle of reciprocity. One of three experimenters (one male, two female) introduced the
heuristic principle of reciprocity in an oral manner. In the reciprocity condition, the
experimenter entered the room and told participants that he or she would make an excuse and
exception from the next part of the experiment, which included a mathematical test (see
Appendix I), because she or he indicated to have collected enough data on the test. We
expected the compliance rates to be higher in this condition because the heuristic principle
promotes persuasion. The norm of reciprocity says that we treat others as they have treated us
(Gouldner, 1960). In this case, we assume that participants feel obligated to repay the
experimenter for his/her act of kindness, of excusing them of the mathematical test. In the
reversed reciprocity condition, the experimenter entered the room and told the participant that
the experiment was actually over, and all other participants were free after the last task, but he
or she would be an exception and had to make a mathematical test because the experimenter
needed more data. Further, these participants were told that former participants thought of the
test as boring and difficult. In this case, participants were given the feeling that they had
already done a lot, but that the experimenter wanted him or her to do an extra task. Based on
the norm of reciprocity (Gouldner, 1960) we predicted that participants in the reversed
reciprocity condition would comply less as a result of making use of the heuristic principle of
reciprocity in the opposite direction. In both conditions (reversed reciprocity and reciprocity)
the experimenter entered the room with the mathematical test (see Appendix I) in hand and
showed the participants what to expect in the test. Participants in the control condition (no
13
Resource depletion and persuasion
reciprocity principle is used) were not told any information about a mathematical test or
anyone being excused from it.
Dependent Measure. Before leaving the room, the experimenter gave participants a
standardized form with a request (see Appendix II), which asked participants to volunteer
some of their free time in order to participate in other studies (see Gorassini & Olson, 1995).
The researcher asked participants to read the form and fill it out after the experimenter left the
room. In particular the standardized request was as follows:
So much research is going on that there are not enough students on the subject
pool to fill the demand. As a consequence, some of our experimenters cannot
complete their research because there are too few subjects. The department of
Behavioral Sciences is therefore asking students to consider volunteering extra
research time in the future -it is an addition to credit time- to help
experimenters.
Further, participants were asked for their e-mail address, so that if an experimenter would
not have enough subjects he or she might send an e-mail. In addition, participants were asked
how much of their free-time they would volunteer to help experimenters. This was used as a
measure for compliance (see Kardes, Fennis, Hirt, Tormala, & Bullington, 2007). The
alternatives 0 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour, 1 ½ hour, 2 hours, 2 ½ hour, and 3 hours.
Participants could circle an existing number or write a number in a space next to “other”
(amount of time participants would volunteer was an indicator for compliance). Besides that,
participants were asked to think of any reasons (independent of their answer) why they would
not like to volunteer in research. These counterarguments were included as an extra measure
to see whether participants in the resource depletion condition indeed were depleted. We
expected that subjects in the depletion condition would name significantly less
counterarguments than their non-depleted counterparts. Therefore, the number of
counterarguments generated served as an extra measure of self-regulatory resource depletion.
An interrater reliability analysis was performed to determine consistency among raters when
scoring the counterarguments. The interrater reliability for the two raters was found to be high
(α = .93).
When the experimenter returned, participants were debriefed and thanked.
Additional measures. Additional items measured how much participants enjoyed the task,
how difficult they found the task, whether the task was unpleasant, how much effort they put
14
Resource depletion and persuasion
into the task, how frustrating the task was, how strong they had to exert control over their self
during the task, and how strong they had to control themselves to inhibit a certain inclination.
These items were measured on a 7-point scale anchored by 1= not al all (e.g. enjoyable) and
7= very much (e.g. enjoyable).
15
Resource depletion and persuasion
Results
Manipulation Check
We conducted several manipulation checks to ensure that the instructions the participants
became had their intended effects. Given that previous research (for example, Baumeister et
al., 1998) has found no mood effects of self-regulation manipulations, we predicted no mood
differences as a function of condition. To ensure that our manipulation did not affect mood,
we conducted an ANOVA using mood as dependent variable and depletion manipulation as
factor. This analysis confirmed our expectations that mood states did not systematically vary
with condition, F(1, 108) = .14, ns. Further, we tested the manipulation of the Stroop task.
Results showed that the Stroop task had a significant effect on time, F(1, 109) = 32.15, p <
.05. Participants in the depletion induction condition, that is the condition in which
participants had to click the color of color words, needed significantly more time to respond
to the Stroop-items (M = 1.23, SD = .36) compared to participants in the no depletion
condition (M = .92, SD = .19), who had to click the color of a row of X´s. As expected, our
manipulation of the Stroop task was effective. Further, participants rated additional items, for
example how enjoyable the task was. Results with MANOVA showed that there were no
significant effects of depletion induction, F(1, 109) = .13, ns, contrary to our expectations.
Based on the assumption that the Stroop task involves inhibiting the automatic response to
read the words (Stroop, 1935), we anticipated to find a significant effect on the following
items: “I had to exert control over myself during the task” and “I strongly had to control
myself to inhibit a certain inclination”. Specifically, participants in the depletion condition
and in the no depletion condition responded similar to these items (for example, depletion
condition: Mexert control over myself = 4.11, SD = 1.59; no depletion condition: Mexert control over myself =
4.13, SD = 1.57).
Analyses of hypotheses
Overall, 76.4% of the participants complied with the request to act as a volunteer. Our first
prediction was that there would be a main effect of depletion induction on the amount of selfregulatory resources (H1). The State Ego Depletion Scale (Ciarocco et al., under review) was
presented in order to measure self-regulatory resource depletion and we expected that
individuals in the depletion condition would have significantly higher scores compared to
participants in the no depletion condition. We used a univariate analysis to examine the data.
The State Ego Depletion Scale served as the dependent variable and the depletion induction
was the fixed factor. This analysis revealed no significant effect, F(1,108) = .04, p = .85.
16
Resource depletion and persuasion
When examining the scores it can be observed that the means were almost the same for
subjects in the depletion condition (M = 3.56, SD = .81) and for subjects in the no depletion
condition (M = 3.59, SD = 1.17). In addition, we predicted that subjects in the depletion
condition would name significantly less counterarguments than their non-depleted
counterparts. Therefore, we looked at the number of counterarguments as a measure of selfregulatory resource depletion. Again, we used a univariate analysis. A significant main effect
was observed when counterarguments served as the dependent variable, F(1, 108) = 6.80, p <
.05. Specifically, this result showed that participants who were depleted of their regulatory
resources generated overall less counterarguments (M = .87, SD = .73) as compared to
participants in the no depletion condition (M = 1.30, SD = .99).
1,4
1,2
Counterarguments
1
0,8
depletion
no depletion
0,6
0,4
0,2
0
depletion
no depletion
Figure 1. Amount of counterarguments as a function of depletion induction.
In contrast to hypothesis 2 we found no main effect of heuristic on the amount of compliance,
when the amount of time one was willing to volunteer in future research served as the
dependent variable, F(1, 107) = 1.24, p = .29. However, a trend can be seen in the expected
direction. In particular, participants complied more with the request when the heuristic
principle of reciprocity was made salient (M = 46.11, SD = 35.15) compared to compliance
rates in the no-reciprocity condition (M = 43.78, SD = 32.86) and compared to the reversed
reciprocity condition (M = 34.86, SD = 28.73).
17
Resource depletion and persuasion
50
45
40
35
heuristic
Minutes
30
no heuristic
25
20
reversed
heuristic
10
5
Minutes
15
0
heuristic
no heuristic
reversed
heuristic
Figure 2. Amount of time one is willing to volunteer as a function of heuristic-activation
To test for hypothesis 3 we conducted a univariate analysis on the degree of compliance with
the request as a function of depletion condition (depletion vs. no-depletion) and heuristicactivation (reciprocity vs. reversed reciprocity vs. control). The ANOVA with compliance as
dependent variable and heuristic activation and depletion as fixed factors produced no
significant results. That is, neither the main effect of depletion induction, F(1, 104) = 1.61, p
= .21, nor their interaction, F(1, 104) = .29, p = .75 was significant. As a consequence, the
results indicate that the heuristic principle of reciprocity apparently does not have a
moderating role in the effect of depletion on compliance.
18
Resource depletion and persuasion
General Discussion
This study is concerned with the effect of resource depletion on persuasion. Specifically,
we predicted that, when people are in a state of regulatory resource depletion, this will lead to
less compliance with a request when the reversed heuristic principle of reciprocity is present
that promotes resistance to persuasion. Furthermore, we also expected that a state of
regulatory resource depletion results in more compliance with a request when the heuristic
principle of reciprocity is present that promotes persuasion. In the end, not all hypotheses are
confirmed. Reasons for the effects found and results will be discussed in the following
section.
By and large, the results of the present study provide support for a resource model of selfregulation. We expected that subjects would have less self-regulatory resources after a
depleting task. Specifically, we used the Stroop task to manipulate self-regulatory resource
depletion. Contrary to our expectations, participants in the depletion condition did not score
higher on the State Ego Depletion Scale, than participants in the no-depletion condition. One
possible explanation for this finding might be that most of the subjects who participated in
this experiment were psychology students, who surely are familiar with the Stroop task.
Further, it could be that participants were not aware and did not realize that the task involves
inhibiting a strong automatic response. These reasons might explain why we found
insignificant results on the State Ego Depletion Scale. Another explanation could be that,
when participants had to name the colors instead of clicking the words this might have been
more challenging and might have lead to different results. A different possible explanation
could be that the State Ego Depletion Scale was not the right manner to measure depletion.
This might be because the State Ego Depletion Scale is a subjective measure that is filled out
by participants on their own, and therefore might be less reliable. Moreover, participants had
to answer additional items, for example, how much participants enjoyed the task. With regard
to two items we anticipated to find significant differences in the depletion condition compared
to the no depletion condition. Specially, the two items were about how strong participants had
to control themselves to inhibit a certain inclination and whether subjects had to exert control
over themselves during the task. These items did not show the desired effect, which might
again be due to the fact that the subjects were already familiar with the Stroop task. Another
reason may be that the items were not interpreted the way intended. It might have been the
case that some participants did not relate these items to the Stroop task but to other tasks
which they did beforehand. On the other hand it has to be said that there are a several studies
which also used the Stroop task to manipulate self-regulatory resource depletion (see for
19
Resource depletion and persuasion
example, Baumeister et al., 2005) where a significant effect was indeed found. Thus, the
results from this study are somewhat unusual.
In line with our first hypothesis, we found a significant effect of self-regulation on the
amount of counterarguments. Particularly, subjects in the depletion condition mentioned
significant less counterarguments for why they would not like to volunteer as research
participants compared to participants in the no depletion condition. This result provides
evidence that self-regulatory resource depletion in one domain has an effect in other areas.
Moreover, this finding is consistent with our argument that people will have less selfregulatory resources after they were confronted with a depleting task. Additionally, this result
supports the findings reported by Janssen et al. (in press) that a state of resource-depletion has
an impact on the amount of self-regulatory resources.
The second hypothesis, that people’s compliance will be dependent on the salience of a
heuristic principle, did not reach significance. Nonetheless, a trend can be seen in the desired
direction. That is, participants were overall willing to spend more minutes voluntarily
participating to help experimenters when the heuristic principle of reciprocity was made
salient compared to when the reversed principle of reciprocity was used and when no
reciprocity was used. One reason might be that participants who were in the reversed
reciprocity condition did not get the intended and desired feeling that they had to do some
extra task because they were just told that they had to do the algebra exercises but did not
actually get them. If we would have really let these participants make the exercises and would
have asked them afterwards to help voluntarily participating, this might have lead to different
results. Furthermore, these insignificant results may be due to the fact that compliance
promoting principles, such as reciprocity, are usually used in real life contexts. Take for
example the Door-in-the-Face technique (Cialdini, 2001). This technique is frequently used in
soliciting blood donors (see for example, Cialdini & Ascani, 1976). Results of this study
indicated that those who donated blood due to the Door-in-the-Face technique complied
significantly more compared to a control condition. The question remains whether the same
results would be found when the study was done in a laboratory. This might be an issue for
future research. When reviewing the example mentioned in the beginning where a young and
friendly man tries to persuade you to sign a membership form in order to become a member
of a book club, do you think you would agree to this request when it was made in a lab? Or do
you think that the chance that you would comply would be greater in a real-life context?
Future research should examine whether the effects of different social influence strategies can
also be found in a lab setting. Somehow contrary to these explanations, Janssen et al. (in
20
Resource depletion and persuasion
press) also used the reciprocity principle in a laboratory in one of their experiments
(experiment 4) and found significant results. Generally, it should be said that if an effect
appears only once, the proper approach is to further investigate the conditions that determine
when the effects occurs, not to reject the effects. Thus, future research should examine these
effects and might find alternate explanations.
The last hypothesis is about the interaction between depletion induction and heuristic
activation on the amount of compliance. This effect failed to reach significance. An
explanation might be that resistance to persuasion is found to be strongly affected by
motivation (Muraven & Slessareva, 2003) and resource-depletion is most likely to lead to
reductions in resistance when motivation to resist is present. In the present study, motivation
to resist might not have been present in the view of the participants. Specifically, subjects
were given the feeling that they had to do an extra task, reversed principle of reciprocity was
made salient, which was expected to result in less compliance. As already mentioned, we did
find a trend in the predicted direction.
Janssen et al. (2008) have shown that a state of regulatory resource depletion can result in
resistance to persuasion when a warning about advertisement deceive was used. That is,
participants who had been warned had a less positive attitude toward a mobile phone that was
advertised beforehand, compared to participants who had not been warned. The discrepancy
between the present study and the Janssen et al. (2008) study may be due to the fact that we
used another heuristic principle, in particular reversed reciprocity. An interesting topic for
future research would be to examine different heuristic principles in order to find out if there
are specific heuristics which have a stronger effect on resistance to persuasion than others.
Moreover, future research will be necessary to examine how the extent of resource-depletion
interacts with heuristic-activation to affect resistance to persuasion. For instance, the contexts
and circumstances should be studied in which resistance to persuasion will be enhanced or
reduced. Another explanation for the insignificant results might be that larger sample sizes
will be necessary to detect significant results.
In addition, a study by Meyers-Levy and Zhu (2007) has shown that ceiling height can
encourage alternate types of elaboration. Specifically, the results showed that the concepts
primed by a high ceiling can induce relational processing, and concepts primed by low ceiling
height item-specific processing. The effects of ceiling height were not included in the present
study. But it might have been that ceiling height had an effect on the compliance rates. For
instance, the effect of ceiling heights might also have an effect on the two routes to
persuasion, the peripheral route and the central route. It might be possible that different
21
Resource depletion and persuasion
ceiling heights promote these two types of processing, which in turn might have different
effects on compliance rates and how consumers process influence attempts. The link between
ceiling height and compliance strategies is an unstudied area of research. It would be
appealing to study this interaction in future research.
Finally, what do the results mean for us as consumers or as influence targets? Apparently,
we do not have the resources, the time, the motivation, and the ability to process every single
message we encounter in our daily lives when someone is trying to persuade us. The present
article has shown that we are often not even aware of many influence attempts (for example,
Langer et al., 1978). As a consumer and influence target it is crucial to be cautious as soon as
we are in a social influence situation. Especially, when influence agents make use of clever
influence techniques we should think twice before we sign a petition, donate money, and so
on. Remember again the example from the beginning. If you would be aware that someone is
trying to persuade you to sign a membership form of a book club, do you think the chance
that you would comply would be the same when you were not aware of the fact that you are
in a social influence situation? Surely, the correct answer is no.
But what do the results of the present study mean for influence agents? Obviously, when
we want to persuade someone we likely have more success when the resources of a person are
depleted. This is shown by the decrease in amount of counterarguments subjects had after
they were depleted, compared to when they are not depleted and when the context makes use
of a strong heuristic which is made salient (see for example, Janssen et al., in press).
22
Resource depletion and persuasion
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Appendix I
Example of exercises from the mathematical test
1. Ontbind zo ver mogelijk in factoren:
(a) x3y−15x2y+26xy (b) (
)2 ( )2 2x−1 − x−2 (c) y3⋅2y−y⋅2y+2
2. Gegeven is de functie: f(x)=x(5− x)
(a) Bereken f(4) en f '(4).
(b) Benader met behulp van uw uitkomsten bij a de verandering van de functiewaarde indien x
vanuit 4 met 0,02 afneemt.
(c) Stel de vergeling op van de raaklijn aan de grafiek van f in het punt waar x=4.
3. De kostenfunctie voor een producent is: K(q)=200q+15 met q>0
De hoeveelheid q van een artikel is een functie van de prijs p volgens de formule:
q=100−0,2p met p>0 en q>0
(a) Schrijf de winstfunctie W(‘opbrengst’ – ‘kosten’) als een functie van de hoeveelheid q.
(b) Bereken bij welke combinatie van prijs en hoeveelheid de winst maximaal is.
4.
Gegeven driehoek ABC.
Hoek B is een rechte hoek
Bij D zie je twee rechte hoeken.
BD = 16 en A = 41°.
a. Bereken AB
b. Bereken AD
c. Bereken BC
d. Bereken DC
26
Resource depletion and persuasion
Appendix II
Faculteit Gedragswetenschappen
Marketingcommunicatie en Consumentenpsychologie
Beste student,
Er wordt momenteel een groot aantal onderzoeken afgenomen binnen de faculteit
Gedragswetenschappen en dit aantal blijft toenemen, waardoor de pool van proefpersonen
bijna niet meer toereikend is. Als gevolg hiervan kunnen studenten vaak niet op tijd hun
afstudeeronderzoek afronden, omdat er te weinig mensen aan het onderzoek deelnemen.
De faculteit GW wil daarom vragen of je eventueel bereid bent om ook zonder daarvoor
proefpersooncredits of geld te ontvangen aan toekomstige onderzoeken deel te nemen, om
onze onderzoekers een handje te helpen.
Mogen we jou hiervoor benaderen als dit nodig mocht zijn, en hoeveel tijd zou je in dat geval
bereid zijn om vrijwillig aan onderzoek deel te nemen?
E-mail: _______________________________________
O 0 min.
O 30 min.
O 1 uur
O 1½ uur
O 2 uur
O 2½ uur
O 3 uur
O anders, namelijk: ______________
Zou je hieronder (onafhankelijk van je antwoord) aan willen geven wat je bezwaren hiertegen
zouden kunnen zijn:
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
27
Resource depletion and persuasion
28